Cross-posted from Kat Gaines’ personal blog The Wine-Y Tomato.
My Friday Five is late again this week, but with a purpose this time.
Yesterday I participated in the Bloggers’ Day of Silence for Japan. I hadn’t heard about it until yesterday, so I didn’t have a chance to post about it before, but bloggers all over the web took a day of silence to encourage readers to do something to help Japan – that something is the first of my Friday Five:
1) ShelterBox
Click the link above to read more and donate – every little bit helps. Donating to the Red Cross, etc, is helpful, but it can take a while for funds to reach disasters and get put to use where most needed. Doctors without Borders is another great way to help by donating as well.
But ShelterBox stands out to me. Here’s a little info from the link I provided above:
“So far, the death toll is estimated to be 2,800. In just one town, 9,500 are missing. Not only do the survivors have to suffer the loss of loved ones, but as temperatures fall, electricity, water and food are now scarce to none…Convenience stores have lines hours long and a limit of 10 items to each person.
…ShelterBox provides emergency shelter and lifesaving supplies for families around the world who are affected by disasters at the time when they need it most. Each large green ShelterBox is tailored to a disaster but typically contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, water storage, and purification equipment, cooking utensils, a stove, a basic tool kit, a children’s activity pack and other vital items. A whole box costs $1,000 (US), so we’re hoping to raise enough to send 5 boxes.”
So far they have raised $50,000 – enough for 50 boxes. Human generosity is an amazing thing, and I hope they can continue to raise money to send these boxes to as many people as possible. Every little bit helps, so if you want to help out with Japan relief efforts, I suggest donating to this ShelterBox fundraiser here.
2) Food + Art!
Every food blogging art historian’s dream, right? I’m in love with this post on GOOD today. Actually, their entire food section is just amazing. The finalists are in after they gave readers this assignment:
- “the OBJECTIVE
Inspire a new generation of cooks and non-cooks with clear, simple, easy-to-understand graphic recipes.
the ASSIGNMENT
Redesign a recipe. It can be hand-drawn or hand-printed. Photographic or typographic. Wordy or wordless. Vegetarian, pescatarian, or omnivorous. Just make it original, interesting, and—above all—appealing.”
And here are a few of my favorites:
Megan Fizell of Feasting on Art. She is an art historian from Australia, and I am in LOOOOVE with her blog. She posts art featuring or related to food, gives you some art history for your mind to chew on, and then a recipe inspired by the art for your face to chew on. This. is. GENIUS. And I’ll admit it – I’m crazy jealous of her because I’m so annoyed that I didn’t think of it first (translation: except some Feasting on Art inspired posts in the future?) She even featured Mills studio art professor Hung Liu, accompanied by a rhubarb tart (yummm).
Katie Shelly did an entire series called Picture Cook. Again, genius. I’m especially in love with Crispy Kale — the secret is out, folks! Crispy kale is the best replacement for potato chips you will find.
Federica Oronti created a fantastic little recipe card that has holes cut out for the ingredients, so you can see exactly how much of each you will need (I love the clove of garlic sitting comfortably in its little slot)
Kara Kopp’s design is simple but gorgeous. I love the green gradient, the single stalk of asparagus, and the formatting of the recipe with the ingredients listed on one side (patience not forgotten!) and the directions on the other. If I ever feel the need to try my artistic hand at visual recipes, I will probably follow her example.
3) Chocolate Mint Brownies
These ones from the Brown Eyed Baker:
When I was in middle school, there were two things that my friend Jamie and I often did in our free time:
- 1: Go to the mall and spend all of our cash on cheap jewelry and cheaper makeup at Claire’s.
2: Cook. To be specific, bake.
One day we decided to try our hand at some brownies with minty frosting, or something like that. Mind you, we were thirteen and prone to making ridiculous mistakes. We thought we were pros, going about our baking business in her mom’s kitchen, mixing and measuring and frosting. When we were done, we took our gleeful first bites into our creations, ready to taste their minty chocolate-y goodness.
And then we screwed up our faces in disgust.
We had made one of those ridiculous mistakes I mentioned, an especially ridiculous one involving cream of tartar or something similar. The frosting was SOUR. And I’m not talking good, gummi worms sour, I’m talking sour milk sour. It was really, really bad.
To this day, I haven’t made mint brownies. But maybe I’ll give this recipe a chance to be the one that changes that 😉
4) Theater
Not to brag, but my boyfriend is in Berkeley Playhouse’s production of “Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” for the next several weekends and it’s going to be awesome. I’ll get to see it next Sunday, when I’m ushering the show. Those in the Bay Area should get tickets here.
5) Mac and Cheese
Different versions of this comfort food are all over food blogs right now, and as a result, I’m craving it. My favorite is the version pictured above, from the blog Bell’alimento. Her recipes uses Mozzarella, Emmenthal, Grana Padano, and Parmigiano Reggiano – yum. I’ll definitely be making this one soon.
Until next time,
~Kat
